


still the air here is holy

by cryptidqueerreads



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: College AU, F/F, I also got rid of imprinting because it's gross, I didn't read life and death so I made up my own, Slow Burn, Sort Of, and made renee more of a disaster mom and less of a neglectful mom, ft. bisexual bella, in that they attend college, lesbian jacob black
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24805804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidqueerreads/pseuds/cryptidqueerreads
Summary: when you've been freezing for so long, any warmth feels like burning. Bella is learning to live her life around the loss of the person she thought couldn't leave her, and Julie Black is just trying to survive.the monsters never stop coming.set post-Edward break-up with tweaks to source material to address issues of (insert issue here).
Relationships: Jacob Black/Bella Swan, Jules Black/Bella Swan
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35





	1. baby really hurt me, crying in the taxi

**Author's Note:**

> a brief prologue.

_This story begins with an ending._

_For six months, I followed the deepest drive of my human heart and loved Edward Cullen. For six months, he bent his nature to love me in return. But that which bends will inevitably break, and the stories warning young girls to stay away from the glittering eyes of vampires exist for a reason._

_He abandoned me in the woods. He had thrown open the gates of heaven and then declared me too sinful to stand in its light. He told me that he loved me for my humanity and then told me that in my humanity, I was a liability. He left me to crash onto the ground alone. I couldn't think without him. I couldn't breathe without him. He had so fully inhabited my soul that my body did not remember how it moved before him. For hours, I curled up, the dark outside pressing against my skin to meet the darkness inside. Sam Uley carried me out of the woods, my father carried me into the house, and I carried me through the unending agony that came after._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weeks pass. My thin body, growing thinner by the day, feels as though it will crack under the weight of my sorrow. I don't sleep at all - then I do nothing but sleep. I barely eat. Offering smiles to soothe my father's worry feels like carving gashes into my face. I fumble for the right answers to give to the therapist my parents insist I see. She prescribes me a handful of pills that I flush down the drain. 

I send texts that return undeliverable. I don't dare try his number - just the thought of the confirmation that his number is dead, that my last connection to him could be severed, drives me into an hours-long breakdown. Instead I text Alice: losing her friendship is an added pain, but a bearable one. Dozens a day, then less. Then more again. Then just one, every night.

_I'm waiting. I'll always be waiting. I love him._

I think this must be what praying feels like. 


	2. I could give mechanic-type a shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let bella swan say fuck 2k20

_I am ruins_

_covered in vines_

_my temple long lost to age._

_the darkness here is deep_

_shadowed corners whispering ancient_

_sadness_

_but still_

_but still_

_the air here is holy._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Julie Black's coming by later."

I lift my head from my bowl of cereal. Charlie stands at the sink, in front of the coffee pot from 1997. Frost covers the kitchen window, the late November chill pressing its face against the glass. "What?" I say, seconds before my brain processes the words.

"Julie Black. She's swinging by to pick up some of her dad's stuff that he left here a while ago," Charlie says, his hands methodically adding nine sugars to his coffee. He doesn't look up. 

He doesn't look directly at me very often anymore. I catch him watching me when he thinks I don't notice, his worried eyes following me from the couch to the fridge to the kitchen table and back again. He likes that I stay downstairs, I think. I don't bother to tell him that my bedroom is filled with Edward, that sleeping on my bed is like sleeping on his grave. My promise to stop saying things like that was my ticket out of weekly therapy appointments and back into my sophomore year of classes at Peninsula College, the community college in Forks. When I'd moved in with Charlie last August, I'd hoped to be moved to Seattle for a four-year college by the fall. Now, I barely manage to pass the few classes I had remembered to sign up for. 

I search the blankness in my head for a response. I come up with nothing, save a vague sense of a tall, smiling girl. What does this have to do with me?

"I thought..." Charlie hesitates, then tries again. "I thought maybe you girls could catch up. Billy says she gets pretty lonely down there on the rez, with her sisters gone. She'd wanted to start taking classes over at Peninsula this semester, but it didn't work out. I bet she'd appreciate a friend."

Ah. I nod, returning my attention to the mush of Frosted Flakes. "Okay."

I sense Charlie's stillness: he hadn't expected me to agree. He doesn't answer, just mutters a wordless affirmation. But he finally shuffles into the living room, carrying his coffee and a little less tension.

I bump a cluster of soggy cornflakes, watching as it sets on a spinning path through the off-white milk. I push through the gray fog that fills my skull to idly thumb through my memories, carefully avoiding the ones I don't want to see, like navigating a dark room without barking your shins on furniture. The memory from before ( _before what? before Ed...no, before, before just before_ ) comes to mind: Julie Black, Billy Black's youngest daughter, had come with him to drop off the truck Charlie had gotten from his old friend for me, right after I'd moved to Forks. I hadn't even started classes when I met her. She had shown me the trick to the clutch. I remember her height - towering over my 5' 4", probably even with Charlie's 5' 10" - and her broad shoulders, built more for soccer than basketball. I remember a bright smile, crinkling her dark eyes, so much like Emmett-

My brain throws the emergency brake before the thought reaches my heart. My head clears out completely: I think of nothing but Frosted Flakes.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I join Charlie on the couch after breakfast. There's a game on TV. I stare at it for a full half-hour before I realize that it's football and not baseball, though that doesn't really help me understand it any better. Charlie alternatively groans in annoyance and punches the arm of his recliner in celebration. I give him another half hour of pretending to join in before I give up and grab the battered paperback I left on the coffee table the night before. It's one of the 80's-era high fantasy novels that I loved when I was thirteen, filled with knights and princesses and sexism. It's engaging enough, even though I've read it before. 

My stomach has just started to rumble into hunger when there's a knock on the door. Charlie glances at me, then makes to get out of his chair.

"I'll get it," I offer. I try not to be offended by the look of surprise and excitement on Charlie's face. _I'm depressed, not an invalid_ , I want to snap. But sniping at Charlie doesn't make me feel any better: I already tried. 

When I open the door, my brain immediately scrambles to update my memories. The Julie I remember as tall-for-a-girl is now _whoa-did-you-see-how-tall-that-girl-is,_ grinning down at me from at least six feet. Her long black hair hangs damp over her shoulders, trailing down her bare arms. There's ice pelting down with the fine rain, but she's only wearing a black tank top and jeans stuffed into muddy motorcycle boots, a dark red flannel shirt tied around her hips. Her eyes, dark as sweet coffee, are the same. They crinkle at the corners with her wide smile. 

"Hey!" she says brightly. "Long time no see."

"Hi," I say.

"Hey there, Julie. Come on in, you must be freezing." Charlie appears at my shoulder, just in time for us to move out of the way for Julie and shut the door against the cold. 

"It's not so bad." She stomps the mud from her feet onto the doormat, carefully shaking the rain from her hair. She's telling the truth: she doesn't even have goosebumps on her leanly muscled arms. I, on the other hand, have to cross my arms over my chest to block out the rush of chill, burrowing myself deeper into my sweater. "How've you been, Charlie?" she asks politely, sliding her hands into her pockets. 

"Can't complain," he answers, but he's glancing at me. Julie, seemingly unaware of the simmering awkwardness, looks down at me again.

"Did you _shrink_ , Swan? Weren't you at least five foot the last time I saw you?" she teases.

I feel Charlie tense slightly behind me, but for a moment my old instincts return and I roll my eyes. "I haven't changed. You're the one who looks like she's been putting Miracle-Gro on her Wheaties."

Julie grins again, running one hand through her damp hair. "I blend it into protein shakes, actually," she retorts. 

Something that feels like a smile tugs at my mouth. I'm surprised by how little it hurts. 

"Let me, uh, go grab that stuff for you." The words have barely left Charlie's mouth before he vanishes upstairs. 

For a moment, I panic - I can't sustain small talk with my mom on the phone anymore, much less a girl I barely know. I shift from one foot to the other. The fog in my head won't clear. I can't think of anything to ask her. 

If Julie notices my empty nervousness, she doesn't seem affected by it. She leans her shoulder against the doorframe, looking down at me with a crooked smile.

"So what do you pale-faces do for fun up here?" she says, a teasing roughness to her voice.

I lift one shoulder in a shrug. I hadn't done anything fun since - 

My brain slammed the door shut before I could count the days. 

"That's fair," she says, as though I answered. "There's not much to do around here, if you don't go in for some variety on going out in the woods to bring a bunch of dead animals back with you."

"I heard that!" Charlie yells from upstairs. Something bangs on the floor: I spare a small prayer that he doesn't break anything in his charade. 

Julie's smile widens easily to a full grin. I've never seen anyone like her: when she smiles, her entire body lifts, like she's seconds from bursting into light. She runs one hand through her long hair. "Can't get mad if it's true," she calls back at him. "Not that the rez is much better. Oh, you don't want to hear the tribe's histories again? You don't want to go to the same stretch of beach and stare at the ocean? How about drinking a bunch of cheap beer in the woods? No? Guess you're out of luck."

My old instincts take over again and I snort out a laugh. "I thought the Forks kids invented standing around drinking Natty Light in silence."

"Nah. That's an old Quileute tradition." Julie rolls her shoulders, wincing slightly as she flexes her muscles. The rain is starting to evaporate off her skin already. The only moisture left clings to the hollow at the base of her neck, the dip in her collarbones, the curve of her elbow. I wonder briefly how she manages to dry off so quickly. My hands are still damp with melting flecks of ice. 

"We really do steal everything." The words come out of my mouth automatically; I'm not really paying attention. The part of my brain that keeps me alive is nearly smoking at the effort of keeping the thought of cold hands and icy lips from crashing to the forefront of my mind. 

"Which is why they send me up here to steal away the hearts of your women," Julie says with a wink. She isn't acknowledging the monumental effort it's taking me to stay functional. But the quick sweep of her eyes across my face, the practiced ease of her smile, are all a little too careful - she's noticed, but she isn't commenting. From anyone else it would seem like discomfort: from her, it's a kindness.

"From what I hear, you don't have any problems with that on the rez, either." Charlie reappears with a few fishing poles and a jacket that I'm sure is his. I was there when Mom bought it for him one Christmas. 

Julie lifts one shoulder in an acquiescing shrug. "It's in the Black genes. We're a long, proud line of very attractive people."

"Just what every father wants to hear." Charlie grins and hands over the poles and jacket. "You, uh, heading back to the rez?"

"Yeah, I've got some work to do on the Rabbit. I'm not saying I heard Dad on the phone trying to talk Hawkins into finding me a new transmission, but I am saying Christmas is coming up and she is nowhere near close to transmission transplant ready." That broad, easy smile softens Julie's face again. 

"Don't suppose you'd feel like trying to teach Bella here a thing or two about engines, would you? Every time she has to call me to change a tire I feel like I've failed as a dad." Charlie's casual almost-joke doesn't fool either of us, by the look on Julie's face. I feel Charlie's eyes dart over to me, but I stare out the window past Julie's arm. I feel myself sliding - out of the conversation, out of the kitchen, out of the entire morning. I don't make plans anymore. I don't go places anymore. What the hell is Charlie doing?

"Thinking about taking shop as an elective next semester?" Julie tosses the question back to me. I don't look at her, but I shake my head. Like before, she takes my silence as a response, letting it slip into the flow of conversation as easily as if I'd spoken. "I didn't really take you for a mechanic type."

"I don't really know what type I am," I say. I see Charlie's face fall slightly, and my stomach with it. He thought he was doing good. He thought I was getting better. He tried so hard. "But I could give mechanic-type a shot." An uncharacteristically broad smile lifts Charlie's face before I even register the words that came out of my mouth.

_What the fuck, Swan._

Julie laughs and stretches her arms over her head. It feels like she takes up the entire kitchen, though I can't decide if it's her physical size or just her energy, if she'd fill up a room the same way if she was the same size as Al-

"I can probably teach her how to at least change a tire," Julie interrupts the dangerous thought before my self-preservation can get to it, like she saw the pain coming. 

"Great!" Charlie's almost beaming now. My face flushes slightly: I didn't think I had the capacity to be embarrassed anymore, but when your dad is practically wriggling like a puppy over the thought of you leaving the house, embarrassment manages to find its way back in. "You girls have fun. Just bring her home before midnight, huh?"

"I always do," Julie says and tosses her hair over her shoulder. I feel the flush on my face warm a little more. I don't bother trying to understand why. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why yes, Julie Black is based on Christiane Endler, the goalkeeper for the Chile women's national team, why do you ask.


	3. sun sinks down, no curfew

Julie doesn't talk as she drives. She bops her head to the music scratching its way through the grime-clogged speakers of Billy's old Ford truck, she drums her fingers on the steering wheel, she hums and mutters nonsense and whines pleadingly whenever the engine stammers and chokes, but she doesn't talk.

I don't either. I stare out the window. Trees flash past, wet black trunks under a sodden canopy of earth green. There are fewer and fewer houses as we approach the reservation, tidy yards losing their battle with the sprawl of ancient forest. Every so often, deep in the trees, I see flashes of animal movement, too quick to identify. 

"I never get used to how tall the trees are here." I even surprise myself when I speak. I haven't spoken without provocation in weeks. I keep my face toward the window. 

Julie snorts. "Yeah, 'cause in Arizona it's too fucking hot for anything to bother with growing more than three feet."

I turn slightly to look at her out of the corner of my eye, twisting my body so that I'm facing the windshield. She's turned that grin on me again, the one that feels like a heat lamp. 

"That's probably what happened to me. My body hit five-four and just gave up," I say flatly.

Julie's grin cracks even wider and she laughs. "Explains why you're the size of a matchstick."

"I am not!" I protest. I twist again, a little further toward her, pulling one leg into a crook on the cracked vinyl of the bench seat. The air literally feels warmer near Julie. I wonder if this is another extension of what that therapist called "psychosomatic responses" - her fancy way of telling me that my brain liked to make up physical responses to emotional pain. It was probably lucky I could barely speak during those early sessions: the old me would have had a hard time not rolling her eyes. "You're just very, very tall."

"Fair point," Julie allows with a slow nod. She rests one elbow on the stained plastic of the car door. "My sisters are so pissed that the baby ended up being the tall one."

"Is anyone else in your family this tall?" I try to remember Billy from my childhood, before the wheelchair, but I can't tell if his height in my memories is genuine or a product of a world seen from the size of a four-year-old. 

Julie shakes her head. "Nah, Rebecca and Rachel are both a little taller, maybe five-seven, but Mom wasn't, and Dad's pretty average. There's a lot of tall people in the tribe, though. Sam Uley's ended up being nearly six-five, and my friend Embry shot up six inches over the summer, which nobody saw coming. He's taller than me now. Seth Clearwater - you know, Harry's youngest kid? He's getting that gangly look, like he might shoot up. I'm the tallest girl, though." Her grin takes a slight turn into a sarcastic smirk, and she rolls her shoulders in an exaggerated flex, her muscles shifting under her skin like water. 

I don't smile consciously: I only notice when the brief, irrational panic that my skin will tear hits my brain. It's reflexive, an instinctual response to the shining warmth that washes over me from Julie. But even Julie's glow has a consequence for me: her warmth only emphasizes the constant phantom memories of Edward's icy skin against mine. It's like sticking my hand in hot water, not realizing until the pain starts that my fingers are frostbitten. My chest begins to well with blood from wounds cracked open. 

This time Julie doesn't let my silence slide past. "Where'd you go, Swan?" she asks. Her voice is softer, kinder, but her eyes are back on the road.

My words get lost in the deepening cracks in my chest. I look down. Through the gap of the bench seat I can see years of trash shoved onto the floorboards of the truck - old potato chip bags, glass Coke bottles, an entire pile of quarters glinting dully in the gray afternoon light. I try to count them. I wait for the bleeding to stop. 

Julie lets us sit in the quiet. The rain taps down onto the roof of the truck. I count the quarters. A few minutes later, the truck bumps and tumbles to a stop. 

"Need me to carry you across the mud, Cinderella?" Julie teases, her hand on the car door. I drag my head up. She's looking at me, that smile smaller but no colder, her eyes meeting mine without the quick uncomfortable glances away that I've come to expect. 

I don't roll my eyes, but the impulse is still there. I scoot to the other door without answering and fling it open, dropping down into cold, ankle-deep sludge. I stop dead. I don't know if I can lift my foot without coming entirely out of my rainboot: the mud is the thick, deadly kind that is so reluctant to give up whatever you're stupid enough to drop into it. 

"Told you!" Julie calls out in a sing-song voice. She comes to stand a few feet from me, her feet braced on clearly well-traveled patches of more stable ground. 

"I'm stuck," I say uselessly. 

"I can see that," Julie says. She begins picking her way toward me, each footstep carefully calculated. I glance toward the house: if Billy's home, he's not paying any attention to us. A tiny mercy. "Just hold still."

I don't have much choice. I let my arms fall to my sides in defeat. My hair is getting soaked, but sleet and rain have already collected in the hood of my jacket. Putting it up would just drench me more. I'm suddenly very aware of how miserably pathetic I must look, a tiny ice-white figure waiting for rescue. I try to lift my chin as Julie works toward me, but I know it doesn't help much.

"Thanks," I mutter when Julie is as close as she can get, standing a foot or so from me. 

"No worries," she says. "I'm going to have to pick you up, though."

I look up at her in horror. That wide grin is teasing now, her arms outstretched toward me. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Can you move your feet?" she says. It's not really a question.

I try. They won't budge, unless I plan on sacrificing my boots to the sucking ground. "No," I grumble.

"Then hold on."

I barely have time to protest before Julie's arm is against the backs of my thighs, the other firm against my back. I fling my arms out as she sweeps me off the ground, scrambling to lock them into a tight circle around her neck. Her skin is even warmer up close. Her shoulders are steady, her arms not even trembling as she pulls me close against her. This close, my nose is filled with the scent of her. She smells of cedar trees, of the spice cake Mom makes every year for my birthday - the forest and home all at once. It's so different from the cloying crushed-flower scent of the vampires that I don't really know which one I like better. 

Julie is laughing, her chest shaking against my ribs. "Your face, Swan!" she crows. She's already making her way out of the mud. She holds me close against her, careful but sure. She finds her footing on a worn path from the truck. It meets another path that runs from Billy's familiar red-painted house to a small, tin-roofed shed ten or fifteen yards away. 

She could put me down anywhere, I realize, but she carries me all the way to the door of the shed before placing me gingerly back on my feet. The sudden rush of cold on my body where hers had been nearly sets my teeth chattering. 

"C'mon. It's not nearly so dangerous in here," she says, pushing open the shed door for me.


	4. roll here in my ashes

The small shed rings with the sound of rain and ice on the corrugated tin roof, but that's the only evidence of the cold outside in here. The dirt floor is dry and swept clear, at least what I can see among piles of metal that sometimes resemble machines. The dingy white cord of a space heater winds from the middle of the shed to the door, jumbling with a few other plugs at a surge protector that disappears into the grass outside. Strings of lights are strung around the rafters, helped here and there by a few caged, metal-backed lamps. In the middle there's a workspace, a metal folding chair set out next to a rusted motorcycle body laid across two old wooden sawhorses. A toolbox under the chair is neatly labeled, each wrench and nail carefully put in its place. To my right, just inside the door, is a mini-fridge, plastered with peeling, faded stickers, and a small table that looks way too unsteady to support a huge old record player. 

"This is where the magic happens," Julie says, surveying the shed and shoving her damp hair back from her eyes. She digs in her pocket for a hair tie, then twists her long hair into a braid, her fingers moving with the quick surety of a familiar practice. ”If you call fixing lawnmowers magic."

"Seems pretty magical to me." I step a little further inside. The shed is warm, and dry, and filled with the wood-and-cloves-and-grease scent of Julie. 

Julie beams at me. Her face reddens a little across her high cheekbones. "It's usually just me and Dad in here - Embry is about as mechanical as you are, and Quil just gets too restless to stay anywhere for long."

I walk a little toward the motorcycle, peering at it as though if I look at the rusted metal long enough, it'll mean something to me other than "pile of metal". "Are you fixing this?"

"Yeah, this girl Kim's older brother was getting rid of it. He couldn't get it running, and he was just going to trash it but it's a _'64 Harley 250 Sprint_. I figured I couldn't just let it go for scrap, you know?" As she talks, Julie crouches down next to the motorcycle. The way she says its name, lovingly and reverently, give meaning to words that mean nothing to me. She runs one hand over the pitted metal of the body, her smile ebbing to a small, soft curve of her mouth. 

"Will you be able to get it running again?" I fold my arms tight against my chest, even though the shed is warm. 

"Hope so. I'll probably sell it if I can. Still working on that college fund, you know?" 

"Yeah, I know." I try not to wince at the thought of my college fund. Charlie's police insurance didn't cover a daughter's mental breakdowns, and I'd overheard more than one argument between Mom and Charlie before they reluctantly dipped into my tiny college fund to pay for therapy bills. Mom had still been convinced that I could manage without it: Charlie had been afraid that if I didn't talk to someone, I wouldn't make it long enough to go to college.

"I kinda hoped the rain would die off by the time we got home, but it doesn't look like it's stopping." Julie's voice startles my dark thoughts and they scatter, crows winging off a shaken tree. She pushes herself to her feet and looks out the open door at the rain. I shrug. 

"I don't mind if you want to work on the motorcycle. Maybe I'll absorb your mechanical knowledge through osmosis," I say. 

She looks like I just told her she could open her Christmas presents early. "Yeah? I mean, I could run you back home, but by the time I get back it'd be getting late and-"

"-and Charlie would give me hell for it anyway," I finish for her. 

I drag a blue plastic milk crate over next to the metal folding chair and settle cross-legged onto it. We pass the next hour quietly, Julie occasionally rattling off an obscure fact about motorcycles or vintage cars and me nodding as though the information means anything to me. I hand her tools as she asks for them. Her hands keep a steady pace on the motorcycle. The rain ebbs and flows, like the water remembers the waves of the ocean it once was. 

Eventually, I stand, stretching my arms high over my head. My toes tingle in protest as the feeling returns to my legs. Julie doesn't look up as I wander over to the record player. It looks a lot like the one in Mom's kitchen. I remember long weekend nights in our tiny kitchen in Phoenix: my mother and I often struggled to find common ground, but we could meet there, with new recipes and old records and glasses of wine for Mom as we sang and cooked together. The memories are ones I haven't visited in too long. A small golden spark warms my chest. 

"What records do you have?" I ask, crouching down next to the table.

"You can go through them if you want. It's a lot of my mom's old stuff, some of my dad's, some stuff that I found at the thrift store in town." Julie doesn't look at me, her eyes focused hard on loosening some mud-caked part of the motorcycle. 

Taking care not to shake the wobbly table, I reach into the crate to rifle through the old but impeccably kept cardboard sleeves. The familiar names feel strange in this new place, like seeing your third-grade teacher at the grocery store: I flip past Steve Nicks, The Doors, Journey, even a few -

"Bruce Springsteen? Really?" 

I twist to look over my shoulder at Julie, who just shrugs. "The old man loves the Boss," she says by way of explanation. 

"Parents." I return to the records with an understanding scoff. Even Mom had a few unmentionables in her collection, most notably the Meatloaf record she loved to blast on summer Saturday nights.

"You can put something on if you want," Julie offers over the hollow clank of a wrench on metal.

My fingers fall still on the records. All the lightness drains out of me, heavy, cold darkness rushing to fill the emptiness left behind. 

_"Wow, you have so much music. What're you listening to?"_

_"It's, uh, Debussy. I don't know."_

_"Clair de Lune is great."_

My head rings with the remembered electricity of that moment. I can't see anything but his amber eyes, shyly darting to mine. I can't hear anything but the rain against his bedroom windows. I don't know if I'm breathing.

"Swan? Bells?"

Julie's voice is a life raft crashing into the black ice-ocean of my chest. I realize I haven't moved in way too long and I haven't spoken in even longer.

"Sorry." A stranger's voice comes out of my mouth, flat and rough like the rusted steel of the motorcycle. 

"No worries. Can you give me a hand, though?"

I stand up and turn to the warm light at the center of the shed. Waves of black still crash against the inside of my skull, my thoughts drowning under the roiling storm. I blink, trying to focus on Julie. She's half-wedged inside the dissembled body of the motorcycle, her long form stretched out on the dirt under the sawhorses. I get close enough to peer down at her through the top of the body. Her face is smeared with grease and her braid is unravelling and dusted with light brown dirt, but there's a contentment in her dark eyes that I envy. She's more at home here than I've ever felt in my own bed. 

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just need a wrench. I'm - ow, fuck!" She winces, but doesn't move her hands. In the darkness inside the curved metal, I can't see what she's holding, but she's got a death grip on whatever it is. "Think you can handle that?

"I know what a wrench is," I snap. There's more venom in the words than I intend, but the guilt gets quickly lost in the dark in my chest. 

"Okay, okay," she laughs. "The one I need isn't in the toolbox, though - I left it over on Miss Josie's lawnmower."

I turn back to the shed. Every pile of metal looks identical. "Uhh..."

Julie makes a noise that is definitely a stifled giggle. "Okay, look at the record player."

"Okay," I respond, but I don't. I can't.

"Now look toward the corner where the shovels are."

That I can do. "Is it that green thing? With all the...lawnmower blades," I finish the sentence with a huff, my annoyance directed at myself for once. The shape of a lawnmower suddenly coalesces out of a pile of metal directly under the window, like the moment your eyes focus on an optical illusion. Its insides are heaped on top of its frame, the faded green paint barely visible under grease-slick chains and curved blades as long as my forearm.

"Knew you were as smart as you look." Julie's voice is a metallic echo inside the motorcycle body. This time I allow myself the eye roll and walk over to the dissembled lawnmower. The rain is fading with the sunlight. Outside the window, darkness is hungrily crawling across the yard, having already overtaken the forest beyond. What little light that's left throws a pale lavender cast over the metal. A piece of long, thin metal that could reasonably be called a wrench grasps for the last flecks of light and glints in the other, more rusted pieces of metal. I reach for it gingerly, very aware of the sharp edges on the long blades piled haphazardly on the body of the lawnmower. 

On the other side of the dusty glass, something moves. I glance up reflexively. A flash of brilliant red flares against the black then vanishes at the edge of the forest. In the moment before my stomach hits my feet, the slow, stupid part of my brain wonders if the trees are on fire.

The black ice water in my brain explodes into the rest of my body. I freeze, my hand extended toward the wrench. I don't see the trees, or the shed. I don't see anything but red curls and marble skin and teeth that shine too bright. My ears fill with the shattering of mirrors and the splintering crunch of hardwood floors. Pain flares along the crescent scar on my hand. 

_Victoria_. 

My body feels alien. I'm disconnecting from the physical experiences that I cannot control, my mind wresting free of my body with a violent wrench. I tilt forward, my hand splayed out flat to brace my weight against the lawnmower carnage. I'm breathing too fast. My head spins, overwhelmed by the quick, endless hits of oxygen. I can't make it stop, can't exhale deep enough to end the cycle. I'm going to suffocate. I bite back a shrieking giggle: my body's going to kill itself before any vampire gets the chance. What fate. 

"You okay over there, Swan?"

Again, Julie's voice is a life raft in the howling storm. I force air into my chest. Under the hysterical chaos in my head, I grip hard to a single, clear thought: _that's not her_. _It's not her. She has no reason to be here. It can't be her. That's not her._

I chant it to myself, a grounding mantra in the maelstrom. I breathe with the words - in, _it's not her_ , out, _it can't be her_. Over and over. The world steadies a little under my feet, enough for me to wrap my hand around the wrench and pull back. 

_Why would she be here?_ I don't recognize the steady, soothing voice in my head. It's my mother, it's my favorite teacher from the third grade, it's Mary Poppins. I force myself to believe it. _She doesn't care about you. You weren't even a blip on her radar. She's already forgotten you. You're nothing to her. You're only human. Not worth her time_.

"I think this is it," I hear myself say. I can't tell if my voice sounds normal or not. I take another long, shaking breath, then exhale it slowly. I ignore the spike of fear in my gut. I fix my eyes on the window, determined to either prove myself wrong or stare death in the face.

The yard is empty, save a child's red wagon tipped over a hundred yards from the house. There's no streak of red hair or white skin, no flash of teeth, no movement in the trees. Everything is still. The forest is burrowing into itself to sleep through the cold of the night. 

"Can I...have it?" Julie drawls out. There isn't a worried edge to her teasing: what feels like hours must have only been a few seconds. 

"Right, yeah," I say softly. I search the blackness one more time, but the night is quiet. _It was the wagon_ , I tell myself. _Just a stupid kid's toy._

I turn back to Julie and the warm gold of the shed. I gulp down the earthy smell of grease and metal, of dust burning on the lightbulbs. I fill myself with it, with the crunch of Julie's boots pressing into the dirt, the scrape of metal against metal as she shifts under the motorcycle. Reality still seems far away, but I can move through it. I can be here. I can go through the motions.

I don't look at Julie as I hand her the wrench through the hole in the motorcycle body. She takes it and, with another hissed curse, twists until something in the curved dark gives with a metallic shriek of protest. 

"Bastard," she says, but the condemnation is loving, the way that Mom used to scold the stray cats she would adopt and then allow to destroy every item of furniture in the house.

I don't say anything. My words are drowned, miles away under the ocean of fear and sorrow and cold that has filled me completely. 

Julie wriggles out from under the motorcycle, wiping her hands clean on her jeans. She stands, smiling down at me as though I haven't just seen my own death through her shed window. If she notices that I'm paler than before, she doesn't comment. She just sets her hands on her hips, letting out a satisfied exhale. "Glad you were here, Swan, otherwise I would've been stuck under there until-" She stops, frowning slightly at my hands. "Shit, are you bleeding?"

"Oh, damn! Sorry, I'm sorry!" I glance down. The first finger on my right hand is dripping hot, deep red into the dirt, the skin torn open. Old panic flares in my head, and my body tenses to brace for impact. I pop my bleeding finger into my mouth quickly as Julie reaches for my hands. 

"For what, bleeding? Let me see." She wraps her hand around my wrist and tugs gently. My body resists for a moment. Somewhere outside the shed, I think I hear echoes of Jasper's snarls. My stomach clenches hard in fear, followed immediately by a swell of remembered guilt. "C'mon, Bells."

Slowly, I relinquish my hand to her, and she cradles my fingers in her palm. She tucks her shining black hair behind her ear and bows her head over our hands. "Damn. You must've caught it on that metal edge. You've had a tetanus shot, right?" 

There's a joking lilt to her voice, but I nod. "Yeah, Peninsula made me get one before I could start classes," I say through my teeth. My hand is throbbing, like the cut had to be acknowledged before the pain could be felt. The shed wobbles and tilts a little around me. For a moment, the deep horror of the ill-fated blood-typing incident from the spring comes rushing back, and I dig my teeth into my lower lip, willing myself to stay upright.

She blows gently on the cut, her breath cool against the burning pain. "I think I've got some Band-Aids somewhere. Here, hold this on it." She unties the flannel from around her waist with one hand, and before I can protest she wraps the soft fabric around my hand, gentle but firm. "I've got a hundred flannels, don't worry," she adds, catching my expression before she disappears behind a shoulder-high toolbox against the shed wall.

I press the shirt tight against my hand and blink quickly. Without the sight of the blood, my stomach is settling. I can't even smell it anymore, the metallic tang suffocated under Julie's scent on her shirt. The flannel is soft from wear, the red-and-black plaid starting to fade a little. I cradle my hand against my chest. 

"Okay, let me see it." Julie returns armed with a too-big Band-Aid and one of the packaged alcohol wipes that comes with every first aid kit. I extend my hand to her and she unwinds the shirt from my hand gingerly. "I think we'll be able to save the hand," she says solemnly. 

I manage what passes for a smile from me these days. "Thanks," I mumble. I close my eyes as blood wells on my finger and nausea wells in my stomach. Julie's hands are hot on mine, the rough calluses on her fingertips grazing my skin as she cleans the cut. I suck my breath in through my teeth at the cold sting.

"Sorry, sorry," she says. I crack open one eye. She still hasn't let go of my hand, cupping it in her left hand as she opens the Band-Aid with her right one and her teeth. I watch through the dark haze of my eyelashes as she smooths the Band-Aid onto my finger, pressing the adhesive edges down with practiced ease. "There. Just change it if you bleed through it or anything."

"Thanks." I finally open my eyes fully, peering at my hand. Julie has bandaged it expertly: I can already tell it'll last through the night if I don't peel it off. The pain still throbs, but quieter, soothed by the Band-Aid and Julie's attention.

"Gotta be more careful, Swan," Julie teases. Her head is still bent over me, her hair falling in a smooth swoop from behind her ear. It nearly brushes my face, and I realize suddenly how close we're standing. The toes of her boots are nearly touching mine. Her grin is crooked again. I can feel her eyes on me, steady but searching my face for - something. I don't know what. I don't meet them. I stare instead at her collarbone, the smear of green-black grease on her deep tan skin. 

"I guess I don't know what I'm doing here," I say weakly. My hand is still in hers, hot where her skin touches mine. 

"You'll get better. Just give it some time." Julie's smile softens. This close, the air around me is suffused with her, the smell of her and the warmth of her. She lets my hand slip from hers, then turns back to her workspace. 

I shiver in the sudden rush of cold. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Julie drives me back to Forks about an hour after sundown. When I get home, Charlie only asks a few questions about my day, mostly to voice his concern over my hand and feigned disappointment that Julie hadn't taught me to rebuild an engine in an afternoon. I'm surprised to find that it's a little easier to smile for him. I leave the Band-Aid on, even after I'm sure the bleeding has stopped. 

That night, I lay on the couch and listen to the rain. I'm exhausted, my body worn by the pounding waves of terror earlier. I check the windows before I sleep, staring hard into the dark for white or red. I see nothing. My hair still smells of cedar and spice. 


	5. you wait for me in the sky

I wake up the next morning restless. There's a sourceless almost-itch under my skin that drives me into irritability before 8:30 a.m.: I carry it with me through getting dressed, getting coffee, getting breakfast. It's an effort not to snap at Charlie. I try to rifle through my thoughts to find relief, but none of my usual mental busywork can keep my mind occupied enough to soothe the feeling. At the stoplight in front of campus, I pick at the Band-Aid on my finger. 


	6. you're scared because hearts get broken

It takes two full days for Julie to text me, which is surprising as I catch Charlie giving Billy my phone number the next morning before I leave for classes. Julie, it seems, is more reasonable than my father. She asks about my hand: I tell her it's healing. She asks about my classes: I tell her they're fine. She asks if I'm lying: I tell her I am, that the classes are boring Gen-Ed requirements. She sends me a string of emojis that I don't fully understand. Every time my phone lights up, Charlie glances over at me. Sometimes I wonder how a man with his subtlety has made a career in law enforcement.

We go back and forth like this, small talk over text, until she asks if I want to hang out over the weekend. Her friends have bailed on her, she says, and Billy's going over to Harry Clearwater's. When I don't respond for a few minutes, she throws in an offer to order pizza and break into Billy's beer. When I get the last text, I'm standing in a towel in my bedroom, my hair still wet and cold from the shower. I cradle the phone in my hand. I think of the warmth of the shed, of the clove-and-pine-and-sugar smell of Julie, of the steady quiet of watching her work. The movement of my own reflection in my bedroom window catches my eye and I look up at it, for the first time in weeks. It's still open, just a crack. I'm not upstairs enough for Charlie to notice it and shut it. Outside, the dark of the November night is so complete that I can't see the outlines of the trees. It might as well be a void. Everything that used to be there is gone. There are no more marble beings waiting to slip in, no more stone gods to bring me the most delirious ecstasies or terrors. It's gone. They're gone. 

"You're gone," I hear myself whisper out loud. It's the first time I've said it. My chest is cracking open. My tongue is heavy, the unwilling instrument of my traitor heart. _I'm sorry,_ I whisper to him, but I'm not sure exactly what for. _I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry._

I text Julie. No beer, I tell her. 

That weekend, I let her put on a record. She picks it out, choosing a 70's rock record that I don't know. It's a soundtrack to nothing except that moment. We listen to it for hours while she works, then I pick another for the next Tuesday after classes. 

The restlessness still won't ease, skittering away as soon as I think I've got it pinned down and soothed. The only relief I have is Julie's shed. The only relief I have is _Julie_. She's the balm to my nerves, drawing me out to laugh when I retreat too far into my head and leaving me to my quiet moments when I settle in comfortably. I start slipping down to the reservation on short class days, then on longer ones and weekends. I bring books, she brings food. I read, she works. At first, we discuss safe topics. She talks about Billy and the reservation high school, sometimes going off about how the federal government isn't delivering on promised funding for education or infrastructure. She tells me stories of the tribe, both legends and histories. But the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when I show up with arms full of leftovers and her smile is a little dimmer than usual, she tells me about coming out to Billy. He didn't take it well at first, she says with a wince, and they still argue sometimes. He worries about her, she explains, which I accept with a nod. I tell her about how Mom didn't miss a beat, offering to take me to Phoenix Pride and then renting _Imagine Me & You_ with me when I was too nervous to go. I tell her how Charlie didn't say much about it for a few months, until I got a small pride flag in my Christmas gift that year. 

After that, I offer her a little more. I tell her about Phoenix and my mother, who was so different from me that it felt like we might as well be separate species. She tells me about her mother, who died when she was nine. She tells me about her friends, Embry and Quil, who are probably distant cousins somehow, and how Billy talked to Embry's mom after he started to transition. I tell her about my lack of friends in high school, and I make her laugh with impressions of Mom's best friend Sunset who owns an occult shop in Phoenix. I lend her books, beaten up paperbacks and even my favorite beautifully gilded hardcover of Frankenstein. She lends me her flannels, her hoodies, and once her combat boots, which I have to tie impossibly tight just to keep on my feet.

I don't tell her about Edward. She doesn't ask. Those months don't exist here, in this place. There's no room for him in this tiny shed. 

But the last year of my life waits for me just on the other side of the sign marking the reservation. The nerves and the sorrow start to creep in, and by the time I'm back at Charlie's door I'm ankle-deep in cold water again. 

It's nearly impossible for me to focus in any of my classes. By the time finals are approaching, I've stopped trying. I bounce my leg under my desk through the first half of the day. Between classes, I walk the empty halls pointlessly. My head is Mom's old television turned to static, stuck between stations.   


Not paying attention in class isn't anything new. I vaguely remember Charlie on the phone with my academic advisor the week after Sam found me in the forest, using his cop voice to impress on her the seriousness of my mental state. Whatever he said, it worked: all my professors let me skate through. My Spanish professor just ignores me, which I much prefer to the soft, concerned voices of my English and European History professors. The only one who doesn't seem to have paid any attention to Charlie's warning is Dr. Braun, who charges full-steam into Bio for Nonmajors 104. I have her class last on Mondays, a 3:00 respite from the pitying whispers and awkward avoidance. At 3:02 I slip in the door of the campus's only science lab, noticing without any relief that she isn't there yet. 

The friends I managed to make the year before handled my sudden change in different ways. Jessica Stanley doesn't talk to me much anymore. She's too angry at being tossed aside, first for a boy and then for the lack of one. Angela Weber still offers me small talk and kind smiles, so her boyfriend Ben Cheney does. Mike Newton tries, every once in a while. Eric Yorkie talks at me and around me, not expecting answers.

"I bet Bella's going to Jacksonville for Christmas, _lucky._ Oh, shit, you think your mom will take you to Disney? Jacksonville's near Disney, right?" Eric is the only one who isn't drained by mid-afternoon. He's in the seat next to me at the black-topped table, waving his hands wildly to punctuate every sentence. On the first day of this semester, I'd chosen the table closest to the door and furthest away from the one by the window and the taxidermied owl that I'd occupied last semester. Braun had joked about the owl scaring me off. I don't remember now if I answered her. 

I flip the corners of the pages in my notebook with one finger, my hands nearly entirely swallowed by the hoodie of Julie’s that I’d left with the last time the sun had gone down on the tiny work shed. Eric isn't deterred by the lack of response. Around us, the classroom murmurs with the sleepy boredom of a 3:00 class. Braun hasn't shown yet; I can already hear people arguing quietly over whether we're allowed to leave after ten minutes or fifteen. 

"No, _Eric_ ," Jessica hisses. She's been letting him talk for five minutes straight, but without Angela in this class to settle her, she snaps. She and Mike are on in their on-again-off-again, I think, because they're sitting at the table behind us and Jessica wouldn't sit this close to me without Mike telling her to. "Disney is in _Orlando._ Jesus fucking Christ, we're sophomores in _college_ , you should be able to find fucking Disney on a map." For Jessica, curses are an art and she's Picasso, making and breaking new rules to convey everything from delight to fury. 

"Don't they do a cool thing for Christmas at the Harry Potter park?" Mike asks, leaning back in his chair. 

Eric nods, Jessica's insult sliding off unnoticed. "Yeah! Are you going to do that, Bella? It looks _so cool_ -"

"I'm staying in Forks for Christmas."

Everyone for three tables falls still. Even Eric's mouth pops open, his eyes wide behind his glasses. 

"Uh..." 

I try and fail to keep the rush of pink from my face at their surprise. I shift slightly, burying myself further in Julie’s hoodie. ”Mom’s coming here, I think, so."

"That's cool," Mike says finally, beating Eric to the punch. I don't turn around to look at Jessica, but I can feel her stare on the back of my head. I keep my eyes on my blank notebook. "Having divorced parents must suck."

"Says you," Jessica scoffs. "My mom's still pissed at my dad for getting me a car for my sixteenth so she's taking me on a cruise for spring break. It's all about learning to leverage."

Eric's spell is broken. I see him make a face at her out of the corner of my eye. "Man, the only thing I ever get out of my dads arguing with my mom is somebody telling me it's my turn to take my brothers to baseball practice again."

The conversation turns to parents, and I slide out of it without much notice. Eric is having a hard time keeping up with Jessica's horror stories: her parents hate each other, and after his dad came out and remarried the only problem Eric ended up with was too many parents. Mike stays quiet. The Newtons are notorious in Forks for their obnoxiously happy marriage.

I flip the pages on my notebook again. The gray fog in my head is swirling like someone's just driven a car through it. Or a motorcycle.

Dr. Braun's arrival, just shy of the ten minute deadline, interrupts Eric's impassioned defense of the misery caused by his parents' group chat. Braun is jovial and funny, but militant on her expectations of attention during lectures. Eric, Angela, and Ben fall to taking notes. Jessica keeps up a constant annoyed hiss at Mike, who just grunts every once in a while in response. I doodle a few of the diagrams from Braun's PowerPoints. Angela lets me copy her notes if I need them, a crutch that gives me a pang of guilt every time I take advantage of it. It's not enough to make me take notes, but it's enough to make not taking notes feel less like slacking off and more like another way to torture myself. 

Braun releases the class a few minutes early. I wonder if something is wrong: it's not like her to be both late and dismiss early. 

"Bye," Mike calls to me as Jessica rushes him toward the door. Eric waves. I force myself to smile at them both, but my face aches with the effort. 

_At least I_ made _an effort_ , I congratulate myself dully. I push my way through the crowds toward the rain-slicked parking lot. I'm halfway to my truck before I realize there's someone leaning against the front grill. 

"Swan, you are the most unobservant person I have ever met." Julie's bare arms are crossed over her chest, her thick braid a stark black curve over her shoulder against her gray tank top. Rain runs in rivulets down her skin. There's ice under her boots. I wonder if she knows people are staring at her. I wonder if she cares. 

"Uh. I wasn't expecting anyone to be on my truck." I stop in front of her. She pushes off the truck, that heat-lamp grin on her face again. 

"Gotta learn to expect the unexpected if you're going to hang out with me," she says. She reaches out to twist my hair behind my ear, her fingertips just brushing my face as she does. I try to pretend like I don’t notice how hot my face goes at her touch. Her grin softens slightly. For a heartbeat, the air between us fizzes with the possibility of…something. I’m suddenly intensely aware that I’m wearing her hoodie, that I’m wrapped up in softness and warmth that smells of spice and forest.

“I’m starting to realize that.” I’m proud of how steady my voice is.

She lets her hand fall and looks into my eyes, her eyebrows drawing tight with sudden seriousness. "No messing around today, though. We're going on a mission."


	7. had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

Julie stretches her legs out as far as she can in the short cab. "You know, another two inches and I won't even fit in my fucking bed anymore," she says. It's half-boast, half-complaint.

I glance over at her. She's wedged herself into the corner of the cab, her legs on a diagonal to eke out every bit of room. Her soaked t-shirt sticks to her stomach. Her braid is a slick, sodden rope laying heavy over her broad shoulder. She should be shivering, but warmth is rolling off her in pine-scented waves, filling every corner of the cab. 

"Another ten minutes and you would've frozen to death," I say, my words coming out more like a scolding mother and less like a playful tease. Everything I say comes out angry lately, even to Julie. By way of apology, I reach down to crank the heat up, turning the dial as far as it will go. 

If Julie notices the sharp edges of the words, she just laughs. "Swan, you underestimate my natural resilience to the elements. I am one with nature. Mother Earth supports and sustains me. It's in my blood." I lift one eyebrow at her, turning to look at her so she can get the full impact of my derisive expression. Her grin cracks wider. "Plus I run like, five degrees hot all the time. My toes might be a little blue, though." She shifts to press her feet closer to the heat vents under the dashboard and slides her left arm across the back of the bench seat. Her other braces against the door, fogging up the window where her skin touches the cold glass. Slight shadows indicate where her biceps will be when she moves, tracing down the long muscles of her arms and shoulders. She's draped over the seat with the languid ease of a huge cat in the sun, completely secure in how the world moves around her. 

I realize too late that I've been looking at her for a second too long. I glance at her face and her barely-suppressed grin, then rip my eyes back to the road. 

"So what exactly is this mission?" I ask, trying not to let my embarrassment turn back to comforting anger. 

"Hng." The disgusted snort is so out of place from her that I almost turn to her again. "It's a rescue mission. Sort of. I don't know, actually. Maybe it's just recon."

"In civilian terms?" I press. 

She sits up, drawing a sudden tension into the cab that makes my stomach twinge a bit in anxiety. "It's my friend, Embry. He's...I just haven't seen much of him lately. He won't pick up my phone calls, he's never home when I go over to his house, he's not showing up at school anymore. Whenever I see him around, he's always with this new...pack of guys." 

I frown at the road. "So...he got a whole new group of friends?"

"Yeah, but-" Julie lets out a frustrated hiss and sits up straighter. She runs her hands across the dashboard, bracing her long fingers on the cracked plastic. "They're - I mean, I guess I don't know much about them. This guy, Sam-"

"Sam Uley?" I interrupt. My memory digs up an image of a face, too serious to only be a few years older than me, and sheets of black hair that smelled of the forest. 

"How do you - oh, right." Julie catches herself before she asks the question. "Yeah, that Sam. He's - he's an okay guy, I guess. He's just really _weird_ , and really obsessed with the tribe and tradition and shit. That's not so weird, I guess, but he's so _militant_ about it. He's been gathering up guys our age for the last couple of months, getting them to follow him around and do whatever he says. They're even all dressing the same now, all black t-shirts and shorts and braids, like they're in uniform or something."

I spare a glance over at her again. Her dark eyebrows are drawn tight over her eyes, and there's a muscle moving in her jaw. 

"Hey," I say, and before I can demand to know what the fuck I think I'm doing, I reach out to lay my hand on her arm. She's as warm as she was yesterday, maybe even hotter. I remember when Mom had the flu when I was in third grade, and how I hovered over her for days, pretending to be doctor and testing her fever with my hand the way she did mine. Her 103-degree fever hadn't made her skin as hot as Julie's was now. "We'll go talk to him, okay?" I press on. Julie doesn't look over at me, her stare fixed on the black asphalt in front of the truck. "If he just started hanging out with these guys, then we can still get to him. We'll figure out what's going on."

Julie just nods, but her grip on the dash relaxes slightly. The dusty plastic has cracked a little more under her hands. She lets her body fall back against the seat. The tension bleeds out of the cab, though its remnants still linger in the lines on her forehead. 

"Thanks, Swan," she says quietly. I don't answer. I don't know how to explain to her that no matter how threatening Sam Uley thought he was, he couldn't come close to what I'd seen. He was only human. 

**Author's Note:**

> just like new moon, we all have to get through some Bella Swan Moping before anything interesting happens.


End file.
